Would Trump Execute A False Terrorist Attack to Forestall Loss of Political Power?

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Pres. Donald Trump has been in office for eight months and it appears that his administration is witnessing a fundamental reorganization. The “radical” proto-nationalist wing, represented by Steve Bannon, got him elected and is now being pushed out of power. It is being replaced by the more “establishment” wing, one anchored in a coalition between the military bureaucracy and Wall Street – and, apparently, supported by his family.

Almost every day, Trump loudly proclaims some “fantastic” accomplishment, allegedly fulfilling yet another campaign promise to “make American great again.” Nevertheless, the next day some new revelation, impromptu statement or Tweet dealing with racial nationalism, Russia or the Afghanistan war undercuts his questionable accomplishment. How long will Americans, especially Trump’s supporters, believe his hokum?

Trump has not faced a real crisis, whether domestic or international. His first and only misadventure took place in May and involved the failed attack by Navy SEAL Team 6 at a questionable Al-Qaeda camp in Yemen. One SEAL and 30 Yemeni were killed.

But what would Trump do if North Korea got more provocative?; if Afghanistan collapsed?; if the EU broke up? What would he do if the domestic economy seriously sputtered like it did under Bush-II, culminating in another – and more severe -- version of the Great Recession? More troubling, what would he do if a serious terrorist attack on the order of 9/11 took place?

Trump’s tag-team of core staff, principle Cabinet members and the military-intelligence apparatus have likely developed a series of contingency plans to respond to a whole host of possible events.

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Over the next year or so, pressures may will mount and Trump’s initial round of supporters, notably working-class whites and Congressional Republicans, may distance themselves -- ideologically and politically -- from his leadership. International pressures can be expected to mount as globalization reorganizes capitalism.

But what would happen if, faced with a serious challenge, Trump statements or decisions (e.g., firing special counsel Robert Mueller) became still-more extreme and fueled a further decline in his popular support? Would Trump think the unthinkable? Would he consider ordering a covert domestic “terrorist” attack to reassert political authority?

It’s useful to a possible conspiracy action by Trump is presented as an historical possibility, not a likely action. Without supporting conspiracy theories, it is useful for Americans to understand the place of federal conspiracies in U.S. foreign and domestic policies. A lot more questionable “stuff” is going on than an average Americans knows about; its kept hidden because people would be up in arms if they knew.

As many have shown, there really is a secret government at work while elected officials occupy the public performance stage. And, since Kennedy, none’s been a better showman – commander-in-distraction -- than Trump.

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Americans love conspiracy theories and the 2016 election was chockfull of good whoppers. The Russians sought to subvert the election, releasing revealing information about the Hillary Clinton campaign. Trump still insists that five million fraudulent ballots were cast for Clinton.

“Pizzagate” was a tall tale that claimed Clinton was somehow involved with a child sex-trafficking ring run out of theComet Ping Pong, a Washington, DC, pizza joint. But this conspiracy turned out to have sharp teeth. In October 2016, a 28-y/o white male Trump supporter from North Carolinatook offense and shot up the place; the perpetrator has a criminal record that includes two drug-possession charges and owned an AR-15 rifle, a .38-caliber revolver and a shotgun.

It’s hard to tell if any of the 2016 whoppers will be remembered in a decade or more from now. Among some of the more recent popular conspiracy theories are the following.

The 9/11 attacks was preventable. The 9/11 Commission reports that a half-dozen “operational failures” contributed to the attacks and a recent poll found that more than half of Americas (54.3%) “agree or strongly agree” that the U.S. government is concealing what they know about the attacks.

The Kennedy assassination was not a lone-wolf operation. TheHouse of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinationswas established in 1976 to investigate the killings of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1979, it issued its final report and its findings were shocking: King was likely killed by a lone gunman but as part of a conspiracy; Kennedy was probably assassinated by a conspiracy involving the mob and (possibly) the CIA.

The Iran-Contra Affair served national-security ends. In 1985-’86, Pres. Ronald Reagan authorized scheme to secretly trade weapons for U.S. hostages in Iran; Oliver North poorly managed the operation in support of the Contras then battling the Cuban-backed Nicaraguan Sandinistas.

The FBI and CIA does not engage in state-sanctioned assassinations. In 1975, Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) chaired of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities investigating the FBI and CIA. It revealed that the FBI used questionable (if not illegal) intelligence-gathering practices from simple bugging to the use of undercover agents and questionable informers, bugging); it acknowledged the CIA’s role in the overthrowing the governments of Salvador Allende in Chile and Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, among of political leaders across the globe.

One cannot conclude this list of popular conspiracy theories without identifying aliens, extra-terrestrials, and the Air Force’s Area 51 in New Mexico as among the most popular – and these “aliens” are not from south of the boarder, but another dimension of space/time.

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During the post-WW-II era, numerous U.S. presidents approved -- and agents of the government committed -- assassinations and targeted killings of people identified as threats to the national interest. These actions have taken place both internationally and domestically, most often implemented by the CIA, military units and the FBI.

In “Assassination Nation,” Doug Noble identifies the following presidents as playing an active role in the killings – and attempted killings -- of foreign leaders: Eisenhower approved the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (1961); Kennedy approved the killing of Ngo Dinh Diem (1963) and FidelCastro (repeated failed attempts); Nixon approved the Chilean coup and, thus, Allende’s death (1973); George H. Bush approved the killing of Saddam Hussein (2006); and Obama ordered the killing of Muammar Gaddafi (2011) and Osama bin Laden (2011). These state-sponsored killings, really acts of war, were executed by the CIA or a military unit like SEAL Team 6.

Noble exhaustively assesses the roles of U.S. agencies in “neutralizing” those identified as no longer serving the national interests. Among these campaigns were the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War; the Army’s Project X in South America; and Army’s School of Americas (SOA) role training mass murderers and orchestrated coups in Chile, Peru, Panama, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.

Domestically, the FBI established COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) in 1956 to investigate subversives and it operated until 1971. The program infiltrated domestic political organizations to undercut the challenge posed by, initially, the Communist Party, but then by those opposed to the Vietnam War, civil rights activists and journalists. COINTELPRO helped forge the intelligence-security state.

Under COINTLPRO, FBI agents and paid operatives fermented tension between the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X; rumors circulate that the FBI collaborated with the NYPD in Malcolm’s assassination. The FBI also is rumored to have played a key role with Chicago police and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in the 1969 raid on the Black Panther Party and the killings of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. John Whitehead details other FBI questionable practices in “The FBI: The Silent Terror of the Fourth Reich.”

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The Trump administration’s leadership is now dominated by two powerful factions -- military bureaucrats (i.e., failed officers) and representatives of the 1 percent (e.g., corporate executives, financiers, philanthropists). Embracing Trump’s ideology, they are attempting to turn the historic clock back to the days when America was “great,” during the post-WW-II days of suburbanization, Joe McCarthy and global hegemony.

Those days are over but, sadly, Trump and his team fail to recognize the U.S. within a new world order. They fear globalization as much as the nation’s changing demographics; their days are numbered and they know it! Plunder is their operational game.

Trump repeatedly insists that his actions are motivated, first and foremost, to protect the U.S. from jihadist terrorist threats. In the face of a terrorist attack attributed to a Muslim(s), people should expect the Trump team to unleash a massive counter-offensive, with the nation’s integrated military and state/local police apparatus – together with the vast intelligence network – called out to defend the country in the face of a national-security threat.

Politicians and media pundits can be expected to rise-up with one voice and echo Trump’s alarm like they did following the Syrian bombing. Not unlike what followed 9/11, mass round-ups and political repression could grip the nation.

What if a “terrorist” attack was executed by white nationalist? Trump’s military-police apparatus could play a “soft” or a “hard” hand depending upon orders from the top. A “soft” attack would be classified a police action and the perpetrator’s background and ideology played down. A “hard” attack, like the bombing of a federal building or para-military confrontations when people are killed, would be prosecuted but, likely, still not considered a national security threat.

Trump seems to embody a deeply flawed notion of selfhood, of a masculinity driven by misogynist’s false sense of power. He has yet to face a real crisis and one can only wonder how he would deal with a genuine national or global crisis. His need for male reassurance could well lead to a catastrophe.

Provocatively, one must ask: Would Trump, including his most trusted associates, execute a false terrorist attack to forestall loss of political power? The sad truth is that one really doesn’t know whether he would do so; no one can say definitively that Trump and his team would not cross the line and commit an illegal – let alone immoral – political action. And this, sadly, is the real problem.

If previous examples are any guide, presidents are not models of moral rectitude and Trump is among the worst. Can one think the unthinkable?

David is a writer who critically explores American history, public policy, media technology and sexuality. He regularly contributes to AlterNet, Black Star News, CounterPunch, New York Journal of Books, Salon, Sexuality & Culture and Truthout. His most recent book is Sin, Sex & Subversion: How What Was Taboo in 1950s New York Has Become America’s New Normal (Carrel, 2016).